


heat of his breath in my mouth; i'm alive

by knewwellenough



Series: the finnpoe series i didn't know i was making [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Kiss, Force-Sensitive Finn, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Technically But It's Whatever You Know!, Two of them!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-06 02:24:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18379019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knewwellenough/pseuds/knewwellenough
Summary: everywhere that poe touches him is warm.





	heat of his breath in my mouth; i'm alive

**Author's Note:**

> title from: Angel Of Small Death & The Codeine Scene - Hozier
> 
> it's not required that you read the other two works in this series as this, according to the shaky timeline i've constructed, comes first chronologically. though it would make me very happy if you read the whole series and gave it some love :)

 

 

“Is this all that’s left?”  


Rose’s words bounce around in Finn’s head in a monotonous loop. It’s there when he’s helping to fortify themselves in the base, when they’re faced with the incoming doom of the Order, when he gives those remaining the push to fight and create time for themselves. They are all that remain of the resistance and they have to act like it, regardless of the fear that comes with staring their fragility in the face.  


Finn has been aware of his mortality since the concept was first given to him, but in the moments in between speech and battle, he can feel the press of it hard against his shoulders in a way he hasn’t before. He knows there are more chances that he’ll die than there are ones where he’ll come out on the other side, and somehow he has to be okay with that.  


He’s not quite.  


The little voice in his head telling him to _run_ persists, but it is as small as it’s ever been; noticeably, it’s continued to shrink ever since this whole thing began back on Jakku. And yet even though it exists barely as a whisper, Finn still hears it, chipping away at him. It would be so easy, it says to him, to just gather up his friends and run and hope to never look back. It would be easier still to gather up only himself and do it. But that’s not who he is anymore; he knows this with every step he takes alongside this newfound almost-family. These are no longer people he can just leave to die.  


Time as always against them, Finn moves quickly in getting out of the Order uniform he’d swiped, in order to meet back with Rose and the others at the speeders. He slips unnoticed into one of the many side rooms littering the mine system. It’s only once he has the shirt off and in his hands does he become aware of his trembling, soft but still there. He stares at his hands in a moment of loss. He’s as terrified as he’s ever been, and worse yet, has time to linger on it; at least before, in all the other times he’s gone toe to toe with the First Order, there was no time to consider it, no time to let the terror sink as deep as it could, and now has.  
  
“Finn?”  


Startled by the closeness of the noise, Finn spins around. It’s Poe standing there, halfway in the doorway, in front of the hall of people scurrying back and forth. He looks considerably frazzled, but that also makes it the most put together he’s ever seen the man. The still-churning fear in his gut is a buffer, though not a complete stop, to the focus on that thought. He _has_ to not think about it, because the only reason that _run_ voice is as quiet as it is is because he’s managed to not fixate on the fate of his friends on top of his own.  


“I’m on my way,” Finn nods faintly, as if telling himself as much as he’s telling Poe. “I just needed to get out of this first.”  


It takes until then to remember that he’s just kind of standing there half-dressed, and the brief squeeze of embarrassment is good motivation to find the shirt he’d been intending to change into. In the corner of his eye he notices Poe glance into the hallway, checking out only for a moment before stepping properly into the room. “No you’re fine I was just— checking in. How are you?”  


For all the chaos around them, Poe’s voice is almost too quiet. Finn’s movements slow to a near stop, looking over the concern on his face with an almost surprise. Not exactly that he’s surprised by Poe’s concern, because Poe cares so deeply about so much, but that it’s happening now, happening when so much more should be taking priority. He doesn’t understand Poe’s devotion to him, as much as his brain tries to push him down a path he can’t afford to go down, especially not now.  


With a somewhat forced smile, Finn simply shrugs and nods to his back, as playful as he can be in his state of near-terror. “I’ve been worse.”  


He shrugs again as if to punctuate how much he Super Doesn’t Care About The Eminent Death Thing and finishes pulling the shirt over his chest. He doesn’t think about almost dying on the First Order ship, doesn’t think about the bone-deep nausea he’d felt when he’d thought all the others were already dead because he and Rose had trusted the wrong man. He’s not thinking about how he felt when he thought he’d never see Poe again. He’s really trying not to think about that.  


Poe chuckles, seemingly out of social obligation rather than finding genuine humor in Finn’s remark, and nods to himself. “Yeah, you really have, haven’t you. I- yeah, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Between the evacuation and their ships being destroyed I didn’t think you’d- you know.”  


They hold each other’s gaze for a few moments, somehow nonverbally sharing that mutual fear of losing each other. It makes something warm wrap around Finn’s chest, an all-too familiar an occurrence when Poe’s attention is laid upon him. He nods in understanding, all other mental facilities working to not feel that same fear now, knowing what they face when they leave that alcove of a room.  


“Let’s make sure we don’t have to ever worry about that again, right?” Finn’s smile shakes at the edges, what he hopes is his only visible sign of how scared he is, and he gently claps Poe’s shoulder. The longer they’re there together, the easier it is for that selfish little _run_ voice to try and grab hold of him.  


Poe needs him, Rey needs him, Rose needs him. He can’t run.  


Finn allows his hand to drop from Poe’s shoulder and begins to walk towards the doorway, with Poe quickly alongside him. Nothing seems off when Poe reaches out another moment later and places his hand on Finn’s shoulder, slowing him again. He turns to look at him, expecting some last words of encouragement, maybe even just a quick hug to assure each other they’ll survive this.  


Poe kisses him. His hand leaves Finn’s shoulder a moment later, both hands coming up to hold his cheeks and pull his face in closer. Finn’s eyes close briefly in surprise, body frozen as it tries to process and respond. Everywhere that Poe touches him is warm.  


Just as sudden as it’s upon him, Finn realizes too late that it’s already ending. Poe’s mouth is gone from his own, reformed into a tight smile as he firmly pats Finn’s shoulders.  


“Let’s go kill some fascists,” Poe nods to himself, hitting Finn’s shoulder one more time with finality before stepping out into the hall, already gone by the time Finn goes to take a step after him.  


It’s a punch to the gut to know that there’s no time to think about this. The First Order is breathing down the back of their necks, ready to obliterate them all there and now, and there’s no spare second to think about being kissed. Muscle memory is the only thing that gets him moving again, walking and then running down the hall to catch up with Rose. He can’t afford to think about it, so he doesn’t, as much as it pains him.  


If neither of them survive this, then there will never be _anything_ to think about. Finn’s hands are still shaking, maybe even more than before, when he settles into his speeder. They are all that remain of the resistance and they have to act like it. He repeats the phrase several times to himself, strapping himself in, glancing over at Poe several speeders over, fighting the fearful voice in his head every step of the way.  


He really hopes they win this.

 

\--

 

It’s a long time before Finn has the time to stop, sit down, think, and lots happens before then.  


He really only comes back to himself on the Falcon. It could be minutes or hours after they’d fled Crait, but the location is all the same nonetheless. He’s leaning against the cot where Rose is still sleeping, palms damp with sweat where they clutch at the metal’s edge. Static numbness has been creeping slowly up his legs for a while now. If it quiets down too much, he can start to hear the ringing that’s remained in his ears ever since the crash.  


Finn takes a long deep breath and tries to think. He remembers their short lived run against the Order, Rose kissing him- _kissing_ him- and then Rey was back and bruised and battered but alive, and then they were escaping as if the ground was going to give out beneath their feet at any moment. Rose is alive, Rey is alive, he is too, and so is Poe. Poe, who is still walking around the Falcon, talking to everybody that’s left, as if this was all just another day in the Resistance calendar. His brain feels heavy with all he has to process, comprehend, understand.  


It would probably be much easier to just go off into a room alone and do all that in some regard of silence. Except Finn isn’t so much a fan of having to deal with the ringing of silence yet, and he definitely owes it to Rose to be there for her when she wakes up. It was his sudden and frankly stupid choice that got them _both_ hurt, after all. So he’s not keen to leave any time soon, but his lack of movement doesn’t slow, let alone stop, any of his thoughts that pool back to Poe.  


Sitting there, just in his head, his full faith doesn’t lay in the idea that Poe had kissed him with no thought towards their circumstances. If there hadn’t been that feeling of almost certain death lingering around each and every one of them. Finn wonders if it would’ve happened like that again without that atmosphere, or if he would’ve been left with another lingering touch, otherwise; a pat, a hug, a fleeting grasp of intimacy to continue the same dance they’d been dancing.  


Finn very nearly leaves the thought there, but something about the way it settles feels wrong. It was one thing to think he was doing and feeling these things on his own. But if Poe had been mirroring him all along, then that dance had to always have been leading somewhere. It wasn’t a statement of finality, a “have fun out there in no-man’s land, I sure hope we don’t die awfully!”. Finn looks across the hold at him, watching Poe in between conversations and wiping the dust off of BB8. In all the very short time he’s known him, Finn’s never known him to be impulsive.  
  
Reckless? Incredibly. Far too comfortable with his risks? Undoubtedly. But never impulsive, never without his reasons and rationale for what he does.  


It’s as he reconciles that thought that a body comes to stand before him and Finn looks up, is greeted with Rey’s quiet smile. He can’t do anything but smile back, still relieved to see with his own eyes that she is safe. Wordlessly, she sits down in the small space at Finn’s right, head coming down to rest on his shoulder.  


“You look exhausted,” he comments.  


“You’ve looked much worse.”  


Finn lightly ribs her and then they’re both quietly laughing. They’d been apart longer than they’d been together, and it’s good to have this back. At least one of many anxious knots in his stomach comes undone.  


Even as they sit there, completely content with the silent company, Finn’s thoughts start to drift back to where they were before, to Poe and to be able to be alone with him again. Talk to him. Kiss him again. If he focuses, he can still feel Poe’s hands on his face, mouth on his own. He can still feel it in his fingers those brief few moments where he could feel the man completely, buzzing and warm and too much for Finn to comprehend until it was already gone.  


“You wanna go talk to him?”  


Finn looks down at Rey, only briefly startled to be out of his own head. He doesn’t consciously intend to, but his expression shifts into one of confusion.  


Rey simply cracks another grin, adjusting herself to rest her arm on his shoulder, chin on hand. “The Force works in mysterious ways. And you’ve been staring.”  


Kidding or not, Finn isn’t about to try and lie and say he wasn’t. Instead he shrugs, glancing back at Rose, still sleeping, still filling his chest to the brim with guilt. “I want to be here when she wakes up.”  


“You’ll be quick and I’ll be here meanwhile,” Rey shrugs, taking a look of her own, and this time her smile shifts from a playful thing to one of warm sincerity. It shifts back again when she looks at Finn. While he takes a moment to at least try and think about it, she licks her thumb and starts to rub away at some of the dirt still caked into his skin; his grimace is his only protest. “If she wakes up, I’ll be nice to her.”  


Finn had no worries she wouldn’t be. And while Rose might not have cared much about Rey in the distant abstract, he’s confident she’ll like Real Rey. He also thinks Rey is just going to keep cleaning off his face if he doesn’t get up, which is an added incentive for him to do so.  


Finally dipping his shoulder out from under her, Finn stands up and allows Rey to take his place at Rose’s sleeping side. It’s this movement that seems to instantly grab Poe’s attention; his head had quickly swiveled to Finn, away from the cluster of rebels Finn hadn’t been around long enough to know the names of yet. It takes a considerable effort on Finn’s part not to just stand there and stare back brainlessly. Instead he manages to nod at the main corridor, then to Rose, because insinuating that he’s grabbing something for her is far easier to do than anything else going through his head. And without missing a beat, Poe is nodding, excusing himself from the circle, and following at Finn’s heels to leave the hold.  


“Everything’s okay?” Poe’s voice is a whisper, only briefly glancing back as the entryway into the hold disappears behind them.  


Finn’s heartbeat is erratic, and, somehow, he can feel a similar skittishness emanating from Poe. Self doubt is a persistent beast. But still he nods, checking for himself that they’re no longer in view of anyone else on the ship; the last thing he needs is to do this in front of an accidental audience.  


“Yeah. I just needed you for--” Finn verbally and physically slows to a stop, and Poe mirrors him, watching him with such a genuine, awful concern. “I don’t know how to actually talk about this, so I’m just going to-- okay.”  


Poe, through all of his ramble, is still just listening to him, smiling ever so faintly. Finn can’t describe the feeling he’s overwhelmed with as anything other than complete adoration; love, sometime later down the line, maybe.  


As bold as he can ever imagine himself being, Finn just does it. This time it’s his hands on Poe’s face as he steps in as close as he dares, kisses him in the way he would’ve if he’d gotten the chance earlier. Poe does not make his same mistake of freezing up; minimal time is given to absorb the situation, and then Poe is kissing back with equal push. His hands go to Finn’s shoulders to steady them, and even through his shirt, they are warm.  


In the grand scheme of kisses, it’s not the longest in the book. But it’s more than Finn thought he was ever going to get, and he clings to it desperately. It’s a quiet thing when he pulls back to catch his breath, thumbs moving softly against the stubble at Poe’s jaw. Poe keeps his eyes closed a little longer, and it’s hard not to dive right back into it when Finn is left to just stare at him.  


“If this is how I’m rubbing off on you,” Poe finally says, “I like it much better than the trying to get yourself killed thing.”  


All Finn can do is keep his laugh as quiet as possible, shaking his head and feeling the nerves and fear drop away. The second (third, technically) kiss is faster, their hands both grabbing at shirt and hair and they start to move through the corridor with no forethought to direction.  


It doesn’t take very long for them to bump a little roughly into the wall, and something in the Falcon makes an especially loud noise in protest. Both of them jump, now a little further apart despite Poe keeping a hand firmly on Finn’s chest; nobody comes running down the hall in a panic after them.  


“Sorry,” Finn whispers, still looking down the hall until he can see Poe has looked away first.  


Poe, in response, shrugs. “They’ve never taken me seriously a day in their lives, they’re not going to start now.”  


“Not a day?”  


“Not a day.”  


Poe kisses him to stop the back and forth, even despite the two of them both laughing too much to really gather up much speed. Finn can feel it when Poe settles snugly against the wall, mouth a permanent smile against Finn’s own. He’s still warm everywhere that Finn touches him.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> original title for this was "the kind of reckless that should send me running" but i went on a hozier binge and this got caught up in that. cleverly timed this to come out after the ix trailer dropped, hoping that it would result in a surge in the finnpoe ao3 tag
> 
> follow my twitter @riseofinnpoe or my tumblr transfinnpoe for more content and consider commissioning me to help me stay above water as i continue through hrt!


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